


Like An Ocean Being Warmed By The Sun

by Go0se



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Happy Ending, It's Hard and Nobody Understands, Second Kiss, Teenage Drama, mentions of original Innocence (D.Gray-Man)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 10:10:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15727266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se
Summary: Mei-Ling's second kiss with Keisha Alexander went better than their first.





	Like An Ocean Being Warmed By The Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Shins’ song, [‘Simple Song’](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyAJ4V06izg).  
> Prompt, from Rose, of #52 on [this tumblr post’s list](http://crisontumblr.tumblr.com/post/174316083938/prompt-list) of kisses: “Accidentally Witnessed kiss”.  
> Mei-Ling's family name as given here means 'seer'. Keisha is named after [Elizabeth Alexander](http://www.elizabethalexander.net/front-page-1). 
> 
> Thank you to Rose for the prompt, and Rose (again), Kit, and Froggy for helping me edit this. An additional shoutout to Ren for suggesting an alternate summary, "Love in the Time of Akumas". You are all good friends.  
>    
> ~

Mei-Ling stood blinking for a moment in her room after Keisha left, her lips still tingling from the kiss and the door open from her friend’s hasty retreat. Her heart was doing its best to escape her ribs with all its fluttering.

She’d thought, hoped even, that her friend might’ve said something last night-- after the Finders’ wedding and the party after it, and everything they had talked about on the long walk back to the still new-feeling headquarters together, under the moon. Keisha had looked so pretty, in the moonlight and then with the indoor  orange night-lighting glowing on her dark brown skin. Mei-Ling had been practically floating the whole time. Some of that had been the champagne, she knew, but _still,_ she’d felt so… and Keisha had been so happy.  They had been best friends over a year now-- along with Sean and Phoebe and Daniel, but her and Keisha were different. They knew each other like their palms. Mei-Ling was almost _completely sure_ she’d loved her, too.

But instead of any confession or even a hint, Keisha had just walked with Mei-Ling until the door of her room and then hugged her goodbye quickly, squeezing her hands before slipping off down the hallway. She had to be back to her dorm before her supervisor woke up, that was always the situation with the ‘secret’ Finder celebrations.

Mei-Ling had pushed down the small sense of loss at seeing her go and had just went to her own bed.

 

And now-- and then Keisha had just _left._

Some of the shock and butterflies started to fade. Mei-Ling touched her mouth carefully, worry singing through her. Maybe… Keisha hadn’t meant it? It was a dare from Phoebe or something? But no, her friend wouldn’t do this kind of thing as a joke _._ Keisha wasn’t like that.  
So, had Mei-Ling done something wrong without realizing it? Had she been a bad kisser? She hadn’t really moved, even when Keisha had been slowly stepping close to her and pressed their foreheads together before leaning in. She hadn’t-- she hadn’t kissed back at all.

A spike of panic bloomed in her chest. What if Keisha _had_ meant it, but then had changed her mind when she realized that Mei-Ling had very little idea what she was doing? Or, worse, what if Keisha thought Mei-Ling didn’t care about her, romantically? Or _at all_ ? What if Keisha was hurt and _she_ didn’t like Mei-Ling at all anymore?  
What was she going to do?  
“Oh, Lord,” she whispered out loud. “Sorry,” she added reflexively to Heaven Weaver. (Unactivated, the long fingerless gloves-shaped Innocence sat soft and comfortable on her arms, like always). But she only felt only slightly bad for taking the name in vain right then. She had bigger problems, and it wasn’t like anyone else in the Order was hearing it.

 

Her golem trilled and lit up suddenly, flapping into the air from where it had been resting on her dresser. “Mei-Ling?” Lenalee’s voice crackled through.  
Mei-Ling couldn’t quite stop the startled yelp. She clapped her hand over her mouth and took a deep breath. “Um. Yes?”  
“It’s almost time to go, are you going to be at the Gate soon? We’re all here already.” The older Exorcist’s voice was warm and friendly, like she always was to Mei-Ling.  
“Right! I’m so sorry--” She had a mission to southern India with three others today. That was what she’d been getting ready for when she’d opened her room’s door and Keisha had been standing there fiddling with her rings. “I-- I’ll be there right away.”  
A moment of pause. “Okay,” Lenalee said. “Is everything alright?”  
“Everything’s fine,” Mei-Ling lied, which was easier when she wasn’t looking at someone. “I’ll be out soon!”  
“We’ll see you,” Lenalee promised, and the connection clicked off. The light faded from Mei-Ling’s golem’s starred face and it flittered back down to perch on the top of her dresser, relaxing its wings. 

Mei-Ling exhaled and pressed her hands to her face, then shook herself. She was an Exorcist. Her friends needed her help on the mission. If Keisha didn’t like her anymore-- tears prickled at her eyes. Well, that... that would be _awful_ and terrifying and she had no idea how she would--  
But, it didn’t change that Mei-Ling was an Exorcist and her friends needed her.  
“I can do this,” she said to herself, then sniffled loudly. She scrubbed at her eyes with her glove and grabbed her packed go-bag from the dresser, scooping up her golem at the same time. It squeaked at her companionably.

She managed a smile at it as she left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.

  
*

  
“You _what_?!” Sean hissed, both Phoebe and Daniel drawing closer over the table.

“Kissed her,” Keisha whispered back again, and then put both of her hands over her mouth before she laughed out loud. She felt like her blood was full of sparkles. Like it looked like the champagne from the day before. The adrenaline had rushed through her like a river right after she’d kissed Mei-Ling. She almost couldn’t believe she’d done it.  
Honestly, she hadn’t really started thinking until she’d gotten back down to the lounge room in the Finders’ wing of the headquarters, ran into the others playing rummy, sat down, and just blurted out what’d happened.  
But now it was actually starting to sink in, it was wonderful! She’d finally told her. All the months of uncertain hemming and hawing and being nervous and asking Farrah and Mary and even Daniel. She hadn’t remembered to give Mei-Ling the book of poems that she had brought inside the large inner pocket of her jacket (with some of Keisha’s own, for the other girl, tucked into the pages), but that could wait for another mission. Maybe it could be a surprise welcome back gift when the other girl returned.  
Mei-Ling _finally_ knew how Keisha felt about her. It was like a huge weight had been lifted from her chest.

  
“Just like that,” Phoebe asked in the flat way she had. She glanced around the room and then scooted to Keisha’s side of the table, prudently flipping her hand of cards over before she did (Daniel scowled a bit, while Sean seemed too wide-eyed to notice). “You mean you didn’t actually _tell_ her anything.”  
Keisha paused in her happy memory of how Mei-Ling’s haired had smelled like honey up close. She looked over at her friend and then down at the table. “Well, not… exactly.”

“So you didn’t?” Sean surmised. Now even Daniel had put his cards down and was looking concerned. ”You kissed her and then…?”  
“Came here,” Keisha said. The joy was starting to leave her, dread like damp mud replacing it. She touched her own cheek with the back of her hand, remembering how Mei-Ling’s face had gone red on their walk back the night before, and all the pretty ways she could write about it that’d flown through Keisha’s head at the time. But. “I shouldn’t’ve left?”  
“I don’t know, _should_ you’ve ran away from your girl without saying anything after you kissed her for the first time?” Daniel answered sarcastically.  
Sean elbowed him in the side and there was a sound that might have been Phoebe kicking him lightly under the table. “Don’t antagonize our sister when she’s having a love crisis,” Sean said.  
  
  
Daniel picked up his rummy hand and used it to cover his actual hand, presumably making a rude gesture at Sean which Keisha couldn’t see from across the table. He said to Keisha, “You should go and tell her how you feel. For real, this time, maybe?”  
Keisha swallowed. “But--  but she’s leaving for a mission soon.” Like many Finders, Keisha had always had a good sense of direction and time passing, and she’d practiced them until they were finely honed throughout all her training; which made this worse. “The Gate’s scheduled to open in ten minutes!”

A loud scraping noise. Phoebe had pushed her chair back and gotten to her feet. She put her hand out for Keisha to take. “Then we should go right now.”

  
*  
 

If she wasn’t blasted into dust by an akuma, shot, lost in combat, or crushed to death by a falling building, then these kids’ drama were absolutely going to be the thing that killed her. Phoebe was certain about it.  
_Thirteen year olds,_ she thought, half exhaustion and half fondness. It was ridiculous to think she’d ever been that young and kind of stupid. _Or that tiny_ , she considered, checking over her shoulder to make sure that Keisha was keeping up as they hurried up the back stairwell shortcut to the entrance hall where the sanctioned Gates were.

She added ‘indecisive and panicky for no reason’ to the list when Keisha froze in the hallway right before the actual room they were trying to get to. Phoebe had to double back for her when she realized she wasn’t following anymore. “What is it,” she asked.  
Keisha was practically huddled by a wall, looking down and fiddling with the rings she always wore. “What-- what if she doesn’t want to see me?” She asked, her voice which had been so joyful before now quavering a bit. “I can’t tell the other Exorcists that, I mean...”  
Phoebe resisted the urge to clock her own head against the wall, or ask her younger friend why she was just realizing all this now.  
_Think of it like a training exercise,_ she reminded herself. She wasn’t the second apprentice negotiator in her unit for nothing. If this was some kind of field incident with tetchy nobles’ daughters, what would she do, or what would Ms. Nadja do?  
The answer was obvious. “I’ll go and get her,” she promised quickly, “And then bring her back here, and you guys can talk before she leaves.”  
Keisha looked up, her dark brown eyes huge in relief. “You will?”  
“Yes,” Phoebe said, putting her hand on Keisha’s shoulder and hurriedly turning her around, pointing her at an empty study room down the hall. “Quick, wait in there.”  
Thankfully, the younger girl listened to her.

Maybe when Keisha was almost sixteen herself, like Phoebe was, she’d look back on all this kid stuff and groan at it like Phoebe did. But for now that wouldn’t help; antagonizing actions rarely helped anything interpersonal. Better to solve the immediate problem first. There’d be time for poking fun later.

Thinking up a quick reason to pull a young Exorcist away from others of her kind without awkward questions, Phoebe hurried back down the hall.

  
*

  
The walk down to the entrance hall from Mei-Ling’s room was a bit long. She still wasn’t used to not being able to just jump several stories at once with Heaven Weaver catching her before she hit the ground floor, like she had in the old tower; but the turns of the hallways were a well-familiar path by now. Mei-Ling spent the walk calming herself down as best as she could.

By the time she’d reached the ground floor of the headquarters, Mei-Ling was confident that she’d be able to talk to her friends and not worry any of them.

 

Unfortunately that didn’t seem to mean that she could stop them being suspicious.

Lenalee, Krory, and Allen (and consequently Mr. Link) were all gathered far in the entrance hall, their black uniforms setting them distinctly apart from the gleaming marble walls and from everyone else moving about the wide room. Mei-Ling hurried over to them. Her golem zipped above her, happily joining the other three like it, Timcanpy the most obvious, which were bobbing in the air above their people.

  
Her friends turned towards her as one, most of them smiling, but Lenalee’s smile fell quickly.  “Are you alright?” She asked when Mei-Ling had gotten within range of the group, holding out her hand to put on Mei-Ling’s shoulder. She subtly pulled the younger girl closer, away from a solitary Crow stationed nearby. “You sounded upset earlier,” she continued in a slightly lower tone of voice, her deep brown eyes full of concern.  
Allen and Krory nodded. The group huddle had reformed around her when Lenalee had pulled her in, shielding her as best they could from the surrounding people; any one of whom, Mei-Ling knew despite her best hopes, could report them to Levieller if they heard something they thought was ‘interesting’. All of the Exorcists had gotten like this since the move to the new headquarters. Closer together.  
Mei-Ling nodded back quickly, wiping her hair out of her eyes. “I’m sorry, I was just distracted.” She wasn’t lying. “I’m okay to go on the mission.”  
“It’s not just about the mission, you know,” Allen said a bit reproachfully from Lenalee’s side. Krory nodded again beside him. “If something’s going on you know you can tell us, right? It doesn’t have to be something big or important.” His smile was gentle.  “Even little things bother everybody sometimes.”

Allen was talking like he thought she was a little kid, which was annoying, but he was trying to help. “I know,” she replied, and smiled back. She’d been working on her expressions not showing what she felt like; hopefully this one was good enough to stop any questions from her friends.  
Changing the topic might be good to. “Hey, when are we going?"  
“We’re running late,” Mr. Link responded from Allen’s side. It was the first time he’d spoken since she’d arrived. “There’s some kind of delay on the other side, but it’s not expected to be long.”

 

Just as he said that, though, someone tapped on Mei-Ling’s shoulder. (The one Lenalee wasn’t still holding supportively.) “Hey, sparrow,” Phoebe’s friendly voice said right above her ear. Then she said to everyone else, in her working tone, “Please excuse me for interrupting, Exorcists.”  
“It’s no problem?” Allen asked. Mei-Ling turned on the spot to look at her friend.  
“No, everything’s alright,” Phoebe assured him. She looked completely calm. “But my unit leader wants a quick word with Mei-Ling about the mission two weeks ago, we’re taking down our final formal documents and she wants to be sure we have all of the number details correct.”

‘Number details’ was the delicate way that akuma kills were listed when filing mission reports with Central, and in the permanent records of the headquarter’s library. There was no way to think about the amount of dead akuma without remembering the lives taken by them. It made for grisly paperwork.  
Mei-Ling’s stomach sank, but she nodded at her friend without letting it show. “I’ll just go quickly,” she said over her shoulder to the others. “We were only gone five days.” The suspected Innocence had turned out to just be a certain kind of plant that floated on top of the ocean and sometimes glowed (which Johnny and the others had thought was _amazing_ ).

“Okay,” Lenalee said after a moment of silent conversation with Allen over her shoulder. “Here, Allen can hold your things.”  
“Thank you."  
“We’ll wait for you here,” Krory assured her in his soft deep voice. “We won’t leave without you.”  
“I know,” Mei-Ling said immediately, because she did.  
“Make sure to hurry though, okay?”

 

Phoebe led her away quickly, faster than Mei-Ling thought was really necessary. As soon as they rounded the corner out of sight, she turned to Mei-Ling and winked.  
Mei-Ling stopped in her tracks immediately. “What.”  
“I was lying, Ms. Nadja doesn’t need to talk to you,” Phoebe explained quickly in a low voice, taking her hand off of Mei-Ling’s shoulder. “It’s Keisha who wants to.”  
Mei-Ling’s poor heart started to beat double again. “What?!”  
“In here.” Phoebe gestured to an open doorway about halfway down the hall from where they were standing. “You need to go quickly, though.”

Mei-Ling’s mind joined her heart in its racing. “She-- she told you,” she said finally, keeping her own voice as quiet as she could too. “She told you, um.” It was mortifying to think about it again, not even half an hour later, but it was more mortifying to be reminded of it by _other people.  
_

Maybe Phoebe realized that. For the first time since she had said hi to Mei-Ling, the older girl slowed down, lowering her arms and looking at Mei-Ling head on. “It’s okay, sparrow,” she said, as gently as she got. “You know that, right?”  
“I--” Mei-Ling clenched her fists at her sides. The tears from earlier had sprung up in her eyes again and her stomach hurt. “I don’t really know anything.”  
Phoebe sighed. “Listen, do you remember what I told you when you two had that first big row back last February.”  
The memory made her cringe instinctively. “You said that Exorcists always run out of town before anything gets really solved but Finders talked it out and you were going to lock us in the room until we weren’t fighting anymore.” The fight had been a bad one, in all fairness to Phoebe and the others, but the whole conspiracy to get her and Keisha in the same floor at the same time had been kind of stupid, Mei-Ling thought. Her friends could be so _dramatic_ sometimes. All of the older kids were for sure.  
“Right.” Phoebe wasn’t even sorry about it, not even a little. “And what happened.”  
“... we talked,” Mei-Ling allowed. Hope began to break through the unpleasant churn in her stomach, making breathing a little easier. She blinked the tears back.  
“And?”  
“And we left the room when we weren’t fighting anymore.”  
“Exactly.” Phoebe stepped towards her and held both of Mei-Ling’s shoulders. She even smiled. “Just go and talk to her. That’s always the first step.”

“... okay,” Mei-Ling agreed finally. Then she leaned forward and hugged her friend tightly. Maybe Phoebe could feel how much Mei-Ling’s heart was humming through it.  
She hugged back and squeezed the back of Mei-Ling’s head comfortingly, then hurried her towards the door. “Let me hold your golem.”  
Mei-Ling nodded, holding her hand flat in the air and whistling to get her mechanical friend’s attention from where it’d floated down the hallway. It swooped back to them to land snugly in her palm, and she passed it to Phoebe.  
“Do you want me to stay here?” Phoebe asked, for a moment completely serious.  
Mei-Ling hesitated, then shook her head.  
“Okay, I’ll wait in that window bay,” Phoebe said. She nodded towards the wall at the other end of the hallway. It was a beautiful day outside; shimmering sunlight poured in.  
“I-- thanks,” Mei-Ling said, not quite stuttering.  
Phoebe smiled and began walking quickly away. She didn’t glance up at all as she passed the door.

Mei-Ling just breathed for a second, gathering her courage as much as she could.

  
*

  
In the five minutes or so that Phoebe had been gone after she’d told Keisha where she should wait, Keisha had circled the smallish study room twice, reflexively taking mental notes of the layout, the bare walls and one door in the corner that she guessed led to a closet. Navigation training compelled her to write it down, but she didn’t have any spare paper or ink or pencils.  
Finally she sat down in one of the under-stuffed chairs, though she kept tapping her feet. She took the poetry book out of her jacket and put it on the empty, scratched desk in front of the chair.

For being so close to the extravagance of the entrance hall, this room really hadn’t been furnished very well. Though maybe it’d just been overlooked in all the shuffle. Phoebe had a good memory for details, it was what all the senior Finders in their unit complimented the older girl on first, so she’d probably known that when she’d pointed Keisha in here. Keisha guessed it was a good idea. If it wasn’t very comfortable, it was less likely anyone else would try to take a rest here.

 

Thinking about Phoebe made it easier not to think about Mei-Ling, and what Keisha might’ve accidentally made her feel. Keisha bit her lip and looked towards the doorway. Still no one there.  
Her and Mei-Ling had been best friends almost ever since the Chinese girl had first arrived at the Order, and they’d been through worse situations than this. Much, _much_ worse. But still, this was… different. Keisha could feel how different it was. And not just on her mouth. Kissing wasn’t entirely new to Keisha: she’d kissed three other people before, and only one of them had been on a dare. It was Mei-Ling who was the change. She blushed a little remembering how wide-eyed Mei-Ling had looked when she’d first pulled back from her that morning.

 

Then she sat up board-straight. Someone-- no, at least two people were talking in the hallway with low voices. She couldn’t hear them clearly or see their shadows, so they must’ve been fairly far away. Keisha got to her feet and moved towards the door, then hesitated, going back to the chair.

If it even was Mei-Ling and Phoebe outside, if the other girl didn’t want to see her then Keisha bursting out of the room and insisting on telling Mei-Ling her feelings would help absolutely nothing.  She’d wait, and she’d trust Phoebe.  
That was what everyone knew, the first thing that they taught you if you were a new recruit or when you’d finally moved up from nursery: trust your comrades.  
Keisha understood that the leaders and teachers usually meant that in field assignments, but it fit with talking about girls, too. Or at least it did with Phoebe.

As that thought passed through her mind, she heard someone walking swiftly past the door. She turned around just in time to see Phoebe’s brown ponytail dissapear. Keisha crossed her arms, holding tightly to her elbows.

She had about five seconds of warning before Mei-Ling was suddenly standing in front of her.

  
*

  
As soon as Mei-Ling had walked into the room, Phoebe doubled her speed (running on her toes to be quieter). She rounded the corner to the back staircase like a dervish and almost crashed headfirst into the boys.

“Watch it--! Oh, Fe.” Daniel caught himself on the railing, his eyes flicking to the golem she held. “So?”  
“They’re talking,” she said quickly to him, “Or they’re both in the room, at least.”  
" _Finally_ ,” Daniel said, raising his eyes heavenwards. “It’s not like it’s been, what, a year and a bit they’ve been mooning over each other? Kids, I swear to God.”  
“Exactly,” Phoebe agreed. Then to Sean, “I told the Exorcists that Ms. Nadja needed to compare notes with her.”  
“That’s a good plan,” Sean said admiringly. “Did you show Keisha the--”  
“Study room with the administrative storage adjoining door.” Phoebe grinned.

  
*

  
Mei-Ling looked at Keisha, who was staring back at her with wide eyes, and tried to clear her throat. She felt paralyzed though, like she’d used to when she was a kid and something had gone wrong. Cold fear was running through her stomach and up her spine.

After more than a few seconds of silence and staring like they were startled cats, Keisha smiled. It was a hesitant expression, only crossing her face hopefully, but still it was nice to see. Mei-Ling had always liked Keisha’s smile. “Hey,” she said, her voice quieter than it normally would have been in the otherwise empty room. She was standing in front of one of the side walls, beside a couple flat chairs and empty desks.

Whatever shock had held Mei-Ling in place finally let go. She tugged at Heaven Weaver so it covered more of her hands, then forced herself to look up properly at the other girl. “Hi,” she said back.

 

Keisha nodded, then took a deep breath. “… I’m sorry, Mei-Ling.”

“You’re sorry?” The cold got much worse. Mei-Ling felt the world swoop away from her.

“I’m sorry I just ran off like that,” Keisha elaborated quickly. Her smile quivered but didn’t fall. She dropped her arms from the tight, almost defensive posture she’d had, and opened her hands so they were facing palm-out. “I asked the others, and they said that I probably, that I shouldn’t’ve. I wasn’t thinking at all.”

“Oh.” The world was slightly more steady again. Mei-Ling wiped a stray piece of hair out of her eyes. “So, you--” She could do this. “You aren’t upset with me?”

Keisha looked bewildered. “Why would I be upset with you?”

“I don’t know-- I wasn't a good enough kisser, or something?"

"You-- what? You weren't even-- what would that have to do with anything?!"

"I have no idea!" Mei-Ling stifled a crazy urge to start giggling.

“Well, I don’t know either!” 

“Lord,” Mei-Ling mumbled, reflexively adding a “Sorry” under her breath again. Relief was making her giddy. She wiped her eyes and smiled for real, then crossed the rest of the small room to her friend.

Behind Keisha, the door in the corner of the room squeaked open just a crack. Neither girl noticed it. 

 

Mei-Ling took Keisha’s offered hands and folded them together with hers, tugging lightly so they rested at their sides between them. Her and Keisha were about fifteen centimetres apart now. “I thought maybe you didn’t like me anymore,” Mei-Ling said, “Because you just left, and--”  
“Of course I like you,” Keisha rushed to say. She squeezed Mei-Ling’s hands. “That was the whole point. I really… _really_ like you.”  
“Oh,” Mei-Ling said again. Then she actually did laugh, for what felt like a long while.

When she was done, she tilted her head forwards until her forehead met Keisha’s, and they stood together like that. Keisha’s hands were warm and sent sparks dancing along Mei-Ling’s arms just from touching them. Her heart was _probably_ going to burst. That was fine.  
“Mei-Ling?” Keisha said softly.

For the second time that morning, she summoned as much courage as she could. Mei-Ling looked up and finally kissed Keisha back.

 

(A small cheer loosed from the door in the corner, though it was quickly hushed.)

  
*

  
“They’ve been gone for about ten minutes now,” Krory said to Lenalee, a touch of concern colouring his voice. She nodded back, frowning.  

Her, Allen, Krory and the inspector were all still waiting in front of the Gate. The delay on the India side had turned out to be a confusion regarding timezones, which one of the guards manning it had called in right after Mei-Ling had left with the Finder, Phoebe. The wait to go through was up to an hour. That wasn’t precisely a problem, since it meant that travel would be somewhat safer once their group actually got over there, but there was so much red tape wrapped up around the use of the Ark that it was giving Lenalee a headache. They could just ask Allen to open a passage directly. He’d be happy to help, and they could all be where they meant to be within the next ten minutes, but of course he wasn’t going to be allowed to do that. The whole thing was just infuriating.

 _Focusing on that won’t do you any good,_ she reminded herself quickly, before the rage could bubble up any further. _Think of Mei-Ling._ The younger girl really should’ve been back by now.  
“I’m going to go see if she needs any help,” she said to Krory, who nodded back with a smile.  
Allen, hearing this, flashed her a smile too from a couple metres away where he and the inspector were bickering about something.

 

Her crystallized anklets jingled above her new flat-heeled boots as Lenalee walked quickly across the entrance hall, and into the hallway where Phoebe had led Mei-Ling. As always, under her shoes and leggings, the stigmata marks of her Innocence stung. It was fine though, she’d gotten used to the pain now. 

The ceiling in the hallway was much lower than the entrance hall. Her golem flew closer to her, hovering just behind her shoulders as she walked. Lenalee was heading towards the east wing. The leaders of the Finders’ units all had offices there, connected closely to the dorms in the lower levels.  
Not thinking of much except that she hoped Mei-Ling wasn’t too upset by the task she’d been asked to help with, Lenalee noticed that one door along the hallway was open. She looked into it automatically as she passed by, and then froze for a long moment, her eyes going wide.

Mei-Ling was standing by the wall of the room with her arms wrapped around Keisha, one of the Finder girls in the little group that Mei-Ling had gotten especially close with. Keisha was holding onto Mei-Ling just as securely as the Exorcist held her.  
They were kissing. With their eyes closed like their lives had paused, swaying slightly.

 

Lenalee’s sense kicked back in and she backtracked quickly, stopping just before the doorway and leaning against the wall beside it. Her hand clenched, and went to her heart, and then to cover her eyes. _Oh, Mei-Ling,_ she thought, sorrow threading through it.

She really should be happy for her; and Lenalee was, but. _Why her, Mei-Ling?_ _Why a Finder?_  

Lenalee cared about the Finders too; they were part of her family, like everyone at the Order. She talked with them at meals and remembered their names and got them small presents on their birthdays if they celebrated birthdays. But she’d learned a long time ago to not get _too_ close to any of them, because her and the other Exorcists could only guard them for so long. Once they left the safety of the Headquarters they would die in scores around her.   
And even more than that, on a deeper level she didn’t like to think about, there were more risks to being close to Finders than just losing them on the field. Komui was the head chief of all support services, which meant that he directed where Finders went, but even he had to follow orders from the blank-faced Central officers and priests.  
Lenalee knew full-well that Central wasn’t above manipulating people close to Exorcists to get the Exorcist to act as a better pawn. Mei-Ling could be in a world of hurt, and it wouldn’t only be her who was in danger.

But there was nothing to be done now. Lenalee had seen it clear as day: Mei-Ling was in love.

  
Lenalee inhaled and put her hand down from her eyes, stepping away from the wall and quietly making her way back up the hallway.

Just before she’d be visible from the entrance hall, she turned back around on the spot and retraced her steps, letting her footsteps land as loud as she could without being obvious. Her golem followed her, plainly a little confused.  
“It’ll be faster if I go this way,” she said when she got close to the open door again, not keeping her voice down.

She could hear what sounded like two quickly-muffled gasps a second later. She continued, “Golem, call extension 1215?”  
Her golem trilled and glowed yellow on its face, signalling that it was trying to make the connection through the radio waves. “Actually, cut that, please,” Lenalee said as if correcting herself.    
There was a thud from her left. She kept talking like she hadn’t heard a thing. “I don’t want to interrupt, I’ll just knock when I get there.”  
The small mechanical being flapped its wings extra quickly in acknowledgment, and its face went dark.

  
At that same moment as her golem cut the call, the door past the room in which the two young girls had been kissing flew open and three other Finders tumbled out. They turned to her as one. It was the three other Finders that Mei-Ling was friends with. “Miss Lenalee,” one of the boys said quickly. He smiled as smooth as he could manage given that he and the other two teenagers had very clearly been eavesdropping. “Hi! It’s--”

His sentence was interrupted. Mei-Ling had appeared past the doorway, and turned to Lenalee as well, Keisha shortly behind her.They were still holding hands.  
Mei-Ling’s skin had gotten much darker since she’d been at the Order, but her bright blush was still visible on her cheeks. “Lenalee!” Mei-Ling said, accidentally cutting off her friend’s sentence. “We were just, um.” She visibly cast about for an excuse, but then blinked and turned towards the three Finders. “Wait, what are you guys doing here?”  
“It’s a long story,” Phoebe said gravely.

“Mei-Ling,” Keisha said right after, tugging lightly on Mei-Ling’s hand so the other girl turned to look at her again. “You probably need to go.”  
“Right,” Mei-Ling said, distracted for a moment looking at her, but then hurriedly looking away, back at Lenalee, and smiling brightly.

 

It was a real smile. A nice thing to see after Mei-Ling had been so off-sounding that morning. Maybe something had happened in the morning with Keisha, Lenalee realized suddenly; but whatever it’d been, it was clearly resolved now.  
  
“It’s alright,” Lenalee told her, and she hoped with every fibre in her body that it would turn out to be true. She beamed back at the younger girl. “We actually have more time than we thought, so you can take a minute to say goodbye if you want. I’ll just go back to the Gate and wait for you, okay?” Lenalee told her brightly.

Mei-Ling looked surprised, then blushed a slightly deeper red, and looked happier. “Thank you,” she said.

 

Lenalee nodded, then turned and made her way back down the hall for the second time that morning. As she walked back to the front hall, she thought about Keisha and Mei-Ling’s linked hands.

By the time she’d reached her other friends and told them what was happening, Lenalee had decided. 

She already liked the Finder group well enough, and knew a fair bit about them since Mei-Ling spent so much time with them; but this was different. Since the younger Exorcist loved one of them, then Lenalee would as well.  
_I’ll do everything I can to protect all of them, Mei-Ling,_ she thought, glancing back over her shoulder towards the hallway. Her scars twinged sharply as if they recognized her resolve. _From the akuma, and from anyone else._ _I swear it._

  
Mei-Ling hurried back over to them a minute later, her smile from before having gotten smaller but still honest and bright.

Looking at her, Lenalee felt the worry and solemness of her vow let go; and she was honestly happy for her friend. Being in love was a wonderful thing. (Her own face warmed and she carefully didn’t look at Allen as she thought it.)

“Welcome back!” Krory said as Mei-Ling rejoined their little huddle. He blinked, then pointed to a thin paperback book that Mei-Ling was holding with one hand, pressed against the front of her jacket. “What’s that you’re carrying?”  
“Oh,” Mei-Ling said, looking down at the book like it was a secret. She touched the brightly-coloured cover and then held it up so Krory could see. “It, um, it was a present from Keisha. Something to read on the trip.”  
Krory smiled. “That’s so thoughtful of her.”  
“Yeah,” Mei-Ling agreed, her cheeks rosying again.

 

“It’s a very nice gift,” Lenalee agreed as well, careful to keep her voice even. Then, after a second, she stepped forwards and pulled Mei-Ling into a hug. “I’m really happy for you,” she said into the younger girl’s hair.  
It was so strange. When she’d first met Mei-Ling, she had fit easily in a princess carry in Lenalee’s arms. Now she was only a few centimetres shorter than Lenalee herself; soon she would have a hard time carrying the younger girl at all. Lenalee’s heart ached just for a moment.

Mei-Ling seemed surprised, but hugged back quickly. “Thank you,  Lenalee,” she said, as though she wasn’t sure what she was thanking her for, but meant it anyway. 

  
*  
  
Mei-Ling carried the book in her own uniform's inner pocket for the next week and a half of the mission. She managed to keep it reasonably safe; not-rained-on, lost, covered in blood or cursed oil, or dropped in the mud. It was written by a poet she didn’t recognize, and some of the words were difficult-- Mei-Ling could speak English fluently, but she’d grown up reading and writing Mandarin and only started learning written English when she’d gotten to the Order, so it was still sometimes hard. But she read it cover to cover.

All the poems were love poems. They washed over her like warm waves, a distraction during the mundane travel-from-A-to-B parts of the mission and a comfort after the fighting finally came.  
Keisha had left her a couple pages of her own poetry, tucked in between the index at the front of the book, all written in her neat handwriting in ink so they wouldn’t smudge. Mei-Ling had smiled to see them.

  
The other girl had also, Mei-Ling discovered with another flutter of butterflies, written something in Mandarin on the back cover of the volume. It was laid left to right and some of the strokes were messy, so it took Mei-Ling a second to recognize the meaning. When it did finally click she pressed her forehead to the page, smiling.  
Keisha was still learning to speak and write Mandarin, but she was trying, especially after her and Mei-Ling had spent a few weeks last spring recovering in the Asian branch together. Instead of copying and interweaving lines from poems into an entirely new thing, like she loved to do with English poetry or plays, she’d instead just written their full names (as best as she could manage).  
Bú Mei-Ling and Keisha Alexander, side by side and encircled in a little ink heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate-alternate summary: "Mei-Ling is a good character and I love her and will fill out her character tag myself if I have to"
> 
> As you might've expected, this is part of a heavily involved AU (which I've developed a fair bit in my brain and less on paper, digital or otherwise) where, after losing her crystal ball, Mei-Ling happens upon a second Innocence and then does properly join the Black Order. From there she meets everyone, travels a lot, trains, undergoes further childhood trauma, makes friends, discovers she likes other girls and that's a thing that can happen, falls in love; all the usual. Her General/adoptive dad is Tiedol and she loves him very much.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
